If you want to get things working then never “tinker” with things, maybe it’s not worth it. But if you want to learn and be able to try new things it is really helpful. Having a new VM not breaking existing VMs reduces risk when trying something new.

I think GPU passthrough has improved since you have used it. Some command line prep work is still necessary, but the passthrough config is done in the GUI.

Have you used Google lately? At least chatGPT doesn’t make me scroll past a full page of ads before giving me a half wrong answer.

Maybe if you wrote better code …

/Jk

Syncthing is a better fit for your use case. As much as I appreciate having my Nextcloud setup, it can also be a pain in the ass some times.

Someone I know organized a group buy and bought a box of them.

I am running an Arc A40 on an Ubuntu VM for Plex. They only problem I have is VM not booting after it is restarted. Restarting the host fixes the issue.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000091844/graphics.html

I would also make sure you have a Proxmox install USB ready to go just in case.

I can’t give you specifics but generally what is likely necessary:

1. Backup anything important. You will be doing things that risk loosing data.
2. Make a bootable USB with a live Linux.
3. Look up instructions on resizing partitions.
4. Boot into the live Linux from the USB
5. Resize your existing Proxmox partition

I am running Plex with an Intel A40 in Ubuntu server. Worked well for me as Ubuntu had the drivers baked in before they made there way into a Debian release.

In general checkout LearnLinuxTV on YouTube. Lots of good guides.

Other people have suggested good info to gain nuisanced knowledge. I recommend starting with a simple fact. With enough time and/or the right conditions all storage will fail. Design your setup with redundancy. I personally had to replace 2x 12tb drives this year. I have raidz3 (3 parity drives) and a hot spare. So I just bought cheap replacements from a reputable seller on eBay and consider it part of the cost of self hosting.

Just put them in a separate library and only share it with people that ask for it.

A used older desktop is a good starting machine. I think Unraid is a good starting point as the community is more welcome to completely new people needing a lot of help. Also this channel has a tone of good guides for Unraid: https://youtube.com/@SpaceinvaderOne?si=A8BWLbMq42KzHD8I

I suggest starting off cheap to learn. Then you can spend money as you determine what is necessary based on problems you encounter. One VERY important thing to remember is that HDDs fail, power surges kill motherboards, water leaks kill the whole thing. If you don’t want to loose family photos, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IT BACKED UP OFF YOUR SERVER. Preferably “off-site”.

Yes. The important detail is that it remounts the path once the path gets called. So I setup a cron job to “ls” the path every few minutes to make sure it’s always remounted quickly.

Try looking into “autofs”.

What you got is normal for a consumer board. To get thst many full 16x pcie slots like you expected would require a stupid expensive motherboard and a stupid expensive CPU. But I agree that the communication is misleading. Usually good specs list each slot by physical size and electrical connectors.

I think 2 good concepts come to mind to help you make choices:

1. Least privilege - Only give things/people just enough access/authority to get the job done. A good example is sonarr doesn’t need access to your personal photos to do it’s job, so don’t give it access if to them.
2. Defense in layers - Nothing is perfect and you can make mistakes in configuration. Don’t rely on a single point of failure to protect you. If you want remote access use a VPN. But also take steps in your network like putting a password on the logins.

If you want cheap new drives check out https://shucks.top/.

You can get used Enterprise drives on eBay if you want to got that way. Look for a seller with lots of sales, a good rating, and a reasonable return policy.

Same